


Snarks on a Plane

by the_random_writer



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Boredom, Crack, Crossword Puzzles, Dick Pics, M/M, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 03:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9859838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: Keeping Ty Grady entertained on a plane is never an easy thing...





	

"Quit that," Zane said to his spouse.

In the aisle seat beside him, Ty huffed and scrunched his face. "Quit what?" he asked.

"Quit trying to do my crossword in your head," Zane explained as he skimmed over the list of clues.

Another, more indignant huff. "The fuck makes you think I'm trying to do your crossword in my head?"

"How about the fact you're side-eyeing it so hard you're almost dislocating something?"

"Am not," Ty replied, pouting very slightly.

Zane sighed and looked up from the page. "Meow Mix, I can practically _hear_ you reading the clues from here."

"But I'm _bored_ , Zane," Ty declared, sounding like a petulant child.

"And whose fault's that?"

"Pretty sure it's all yours, actually."

" _I'm_ not the one who left their phone in the tray at the security point," Zane reminded his other half. "Think you managed that moment of fuck-uppery all by yourself."

"But you _were_ the one who got pulled out of the line for an extra-special pat-down."

"Yeah, so?" Zane asked in a challenging tone. The pat-downs were a common occurrence, likely because of his size and build, but something he had _zero_ ability to prevent.

"And I only forgot to pick up my phone because I was too busy watching the TSA dude to make sure he didn't get all handsy with your family jewels," the ex-Marine revealed.

Zane sighed and rolled his eyes. They'd now been married for seventeen months, but Ty still had his irrationally overprotective moments. God bless his crazy, possessive heart. "Sorry, doll, but that's _still_ not my fault," the Texan complained. "You'll have to take it up with the TSA. You can register a complaint when we stop in on the way back to see if they found your phone."

Ty flashed him a hopeful smile. "You could always lend me your phone for the rest of the flight," he cheekily proposed.

"Not a fucking chance."

The smile slipped into a surly glare. "Why the hell not?"

"You don't remember what happened the last time you borrowed my phone?"

"Nope."

"You don't remember using it to email that stupid cat photo to everyone in my contact list?" Zane prompted. "Including a whole bunch of people at the CIA?"

Ty drew his brows together. "Was that the photo where the cat's looking through the scope of a sniper rifle?"

"No, the one of the cats sitting out in the snow with scarves tied around their heads."

"Right, the babushcats," Ty recalled with a shit-eating grin. "C'mon, man, what the hell was the problem? Photo had a pun in it, was cute as hell."

"That's not what the guys in the Cyber Threat Analysis team thought."

Ty snickered. "The guys in the Cyber Threat Analysis team should be glad it was only a cat."

"Oh?"

"Could've sent them all a real cute photo of my dick wearing a scarf instead."

Zane returned the surly glare. "And you wonder why we can't have nice things?" he griped.

"Just give me your goddamn phone, Garrett," Ty said crossly, holding out an expectant hand. "There's no signal up here, so it's not like I can do anything naughty with it. I just want to play Angry Birds."

"I don't have Angry Birds."

Ty scrunched his face again. "What kind of dumbass doesn't have Angry Birds on their phone?"

"What kind of dumbass leaves their phone at a TSA security check?" Zane shot back.

"You do have _some_ games on it, though, right?" Ty asked, wisely ignoring his husband's reply.

The older man nodded. "Sudoku, Kakuro, Chess, Spider Solitaire and Free Cell."

Ty flapped a dismissive hand. "Nerd stuff, man," he muttered. "Gimme a good, old-fashioned shoot 'em up any day of the week."

"If it's old-fashioned you want, I did just install an app that runs the original version of Doom."

"Doom?" Ty echoed, his interest piqued. "Really?"

"Haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but it's installed and it runs, so yeah, really."

"Jesus. Game's gotta be more than twenty years old. How the fuck do you make something like that into an Android app?"

"It's nerd stuff, doll. You won't understand."

"I understand how to play it. Can probably play the damn thing better than you."

"I'm sure you can, but you're never gonna find out."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I'm not giving you my goddamn phone."

Ty scowled and turned away. "You're an asshole, Lone Star."

"But I'm _your_ asshole, Meow Mix."

"So what the hell am I supposed to do for the next forty minutes?"

Zane gave a nonchalant shrug. "Sure you'll come up with something."

"There's one thing I can _definitely_ come up with," Ty announced.

Zane tensed. If Ty was about to ask for a pulled pork sandwich at the back of a plane, he was shit out of luck. It didn't matter how many empty rows there were in front of them or who they knew in the Boston PD. He wasn't doing _anything_ that would potentially end with them being put on the airline's no-fly list and taken off the flight in cuffs.

"Oh, yeah? What's that?" was what Zane actually asked.

Ty gestured at the magazine. "The answer to four down. Can't believe you haven't figured it out yet."

Zane frowned, momentarily caught off guard, then turned his attention to his puzzle and quickly scanned the list of clues. Four down. A malcontent with a continental flavour, eight letters, starts with 'F', ends with 'R'. Hmm. He'd been stuck on that one for a while. If he could answer that, six across should be a breeze.

"Go on, then," he said to his spouse. "Amaze me. What _is_ the answer to four down?"

"Frondeur."

Zane sighed. Of course. A French word. Something Ty would definitely know better than him.

"Five across should be a piece of cake now," Ty went on.

Five across. An artificial covering of hair for the pubic area, six letters, starts with 'M', ends with 'N'.

Zane's frown deepened as he chewed on his pen. Nope, the addition of the 'N' didn't help. He still had absolutely no idea what the solution was.

Ty grunted and rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Zane? You're telling me you don't know what a merkin is?"

A merkin? What the ever-loving fuck was that?

"Course I don't know what the hell a merkin is," was Zane's incredulous reply. "Why the fuck would I? Jesus, Grady, you see my junk every goddamn day. Does it _look_ like it needs a wig?" A second thought popped into his head. "And never mind that I _don't_ know what it is. I'm more interested in why you _do_ know what it is. You got some weird naturist or shaving kink you haven't told me about?

Ty simply smiled and said, "I was in the Marines, man."

"Like that explains everything," Zane muttered.

"It explains why I know what a merkin is."

"Uh huh."

"So what's the next one?" Ty asked.

"What's the next what?"

"Clue, dipshit. We've scratched out four down and five across. What's next on the list?"

So much for having his crossword to himself. But if it kept Ty's mental squirrels busy until they landed in BOS, it wasn't much of a price to pay.

"Okay, let's have a go at twelve across," Zane said in return. "Scots term for an armpit, five letters, the middle letter is 'T'."

Ty gave a sagacious nod. "Oxter."

"Oxter?"

"Yup."

"What the hell kind of word is that?"

"Learned that one from Liam," Ty explained with a shrug. "Think one of his grandmothers was Scottish."

"Why the hell were you and an SAS guy talking about armpits?" Zane asked. Then he shook his head and held up a rebuffing hand. "Actually, scratch that. On second thoughts, I don't wanna know."

"It was actually a very innocent conversation," Ty replied in an affronted tone.

Zane snorted. "I hate to tell you this, doll, but when Liam Bell's involved, there's no such thing as an innocent conversation."

"I'm willing to admit that you might have a point."

"Uh huh."

Ty gestured at the puzzle again. "Keep going, then. Next clue."

Zane blew out a frustrated sigh. "Fourteen across is just killing me. Five letters, starts with 'W', ends with 'R'."

"What's the actual clue?"

"That's the problem. It's one of the cryptic clues, so it makes no goddamn sense at all. It's just a sequence of letters."

"What sequence?"

"It says I, J, K, L, M, N."

"That's it?"

"Yup."

Ty stared off into space, brow furrowed, lips pursed, obviously thinking hard.

Zane swore he could hear the squirrels swinging into sixth gear, shovelling another bucket of coal into the blob his husband called a brain.

"Water," Ty abruptly announced.

"What?"

"The answer, Zane. Five letters, starts with 'W', ends with 'R'. It's 'water'."

"How the fuck did you come up with that?"

"The sequence. Think about it. What letter comes before the start?"

Zane checked the puzzle again. "H."

"And what letter comes after the end?"

"O."

"So what's another way to describe the sequence?"

Zane groaned as comprehension dawned. "It's all the letters from H to O."

Ty winked and made guns with his hands.

As Zane wrote the solutions in, another three answers leaped off the page. A right held over another's land was an easement. To adjourn without fixing a date for future action was _sine die_. A wartime French resistance force was a maquis. Although, if he was being honest, he only knew that from watching Voyager re-runs, not from reading books about World War 2.

Zane read another clue and smiled. The answer was obvious, but it would be fun to share. "Okay, doll, here's one for you," he said to Ty. "Eighteen across, two hyphenated words, three and five letters, second word starts with 'L', means second hand but without the hate."

Ty squinted for a few moments, then grinned. ""Pre-loved, babe," he said. "Just like you."

"You saying I'm second hand?"

"I prefer to think of you as gently used."

"There was nothing gentle about how you used me last Saturday night."

"I don't remember you complaining about it at the time."

"Who said anything about complaining?"

"So we're good."

"And if I'm gently used, what the hell are you?" Zane demanded. "Mister 'I know a guy with a gun down his pants in every port'?"

Ty gave him dagger eyes. "You saying I'm easy, Garrett?"

"Oh, Meow Mix, _nothing_ about you is easy. Trust me."

"Don't be an asshole. You know damn well what I meant."

"Don't think I do, actually."

"What I meant was, are you implying that I've slept around?"

"Let's just say if you had to type in a password to unzip your pants, it would probably be 'password'."

Ty blew out an indignant huff. "Says the man who needs a clear history button for his dick."

"I'd slap you for that, Grady."

"Oh, yeah?"

"But I don't want to get slut on my hand."

"It's a good thing you like your hand so much."

"Why's that?" Zane asked, trying not to grin.

"Because it's the only thing your dick's gonna touch until the end of the year."

"Aww, you gonna put me under a sexbargo, doll?"

"You bet your grass-fed, Texan ass I am."

"Implement a hosepipe ban?"

"Yup."

"Lock up my box of bait and tackle?"

"Uh huh."

"Put my sausage casserole back in the freezer?"

"Jesus, Garrett, I get the point."

"It'll never work," Zane warned his spouse. "Three days in, you'll be waking me up in the middle of the night, _begging_ me to blow you."

Ty crossed his arms and shook his head. "Nuh uh," he said. "Not gonna happen."

"Because that's totally _not_ what happened the last two times you tried it."

"You know what they say. Third time's a charm."

"Or three strikes and you're all out."

"You know, you really need to be more consistent."

Zane raised a questioning brow. "The hell are you talking about?"

"If you're gonna insult me, you can't start with computer metaphors and switch to sports metaphors halfway through."

"What, I can't be a geek and a jock at the same time?"

"Nope," Ty confidently declared.

"What do you want me to be?"

"Right now, I want you to shut your whore mouth and go back to your stupid crossword."

"I can absolutely do that."

"Go right ahead."

"I'm not the one with the raging case of shiny object disorder."

"You keep talking that way, hoss, I'll give you a raging case of broken ribs as soon as we get to baggage claim."

Zane grinned. "Whatever you say, doll."

Ty sniffed and turned away, making a very obvious point of looking anywhere but at his spouse.

Three minutes was all it took.

"Are we there yet?" the ex-Marine demanded to know.

Without even looking up from his page, Zane calmly asked, "Is the plane still in the air?"

Ty actually looked out of the window. "Yes," was his disappointed reply.

"Then no, we're not there yet. Now shut the fuck up and let me focus on my crossword."

"But I'm _bored_."

Zane's lips twitched. It was a dreadful joke, but he couldn't resist. "Hi, bored, I'm Zane."

Ty grunted again. "Jesus, Garrett. I can't believe you just made that joke."

"I can't believe it's not butter, but I try not to let it keep me up at night."

"You keep this bullshit up, I'm gonna move to another seat."

"Knock yourself out," Zane replied, making a shooing motion with his hand. "Think there's an empty one up at the front next to the kid who was having a meltdown at the gate. Two of you'll get on like a house on fire."

"I want to tell you to go fuck yourself."

"Uh huh?"

"But I'm pretty sure you'd be disappointed."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Zane observed, giving the beast another poke.

"Hey, what the fuck does _that_ mean?"

The Texan switched to professor mode. "Well, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it's a function word used to introduce a noun, subordinate or exclamatory clause," he carefully explained.

"What is?"

"That."

"What?"

"You asked me what 'that' means."

"Yeah?"

"So I told you."

Ty finally got the terrible joke. "I hate you so fucking much," he muttered.

"That's not what you said last Saturday night."

"I was only saying that to be nice."

"Oh, look. Here's another easy clue," Zane declared, tapping the magazine with his pen. "Twenty-two across, a three word phrase of four, two and four letters. First word starts with 'F', last word starts with 'S'. To be ridiculously untruthful, or to contain a massive amount of fecal matter."

"You say another goddamn word, Lone Star, I'm gonna take that magazine off you, roll it up real tight, then shove it so far up your ass you'll need a pick and a miner's helmet to dig it out."

Zane shrugged again. It wouldn't be the worst thing Ty had ever shoved up his ass. And at least the magazine wouldn't make a mess.

"How about another clue?" he said to his now absolutely furious spouse. "Another three word phrase, also four, two and four letters. To express one's lack of care for another person's thoughts or ideas. Starts with 'Suck', ends with 'Dick'."

Ty gave him a thunderous look. "Not even if it was the last decent dick on Earth."

"Not even if I dip it in Cheetos dust first?"

"Well..."

"Jesus, Grady, and you think you're _not_ a slut?"

"Who's more slutty?" Ty protested. "The slut or the slut who smokes his pole?"

Zane frowned. "Was that a Star Wars joke?"

"You're the nerd. You figure it out."

"You know what I'm gonna figure out for the next thirty minutes?"

"What?"

"The rest of my goddamn crossword. In complete peace and quiet."

Ty opened his mouth to retort, but Zane raised a warning finger. "I mean it, banjo boy. _Complete_ peace and quiet. Don't talk. Don't whistle. Don't hum. Don't sniff. Don't sigh. Don't fart. Don't drum your fingers. Don't tap your feet. Don't bounce your knees. Don't rock the chair. Don't roll your head around."

"Can I do my meditative breathing exercises?"

"Are you about to have a panic attack?" Zane enquired.

"Course not."

"Then no, you can't."

Ty huffed. "So what the fuck _can_ I do?"

"Don't ask me, doll. You're the one who knew what a merkin was, so you come up with something. Go count the number of bald dudes on the plane for all I care."

Ty muttered something unintelligible under his breath, then yanked at his belt, pulled himself up out of his seat and carefully moved away.

Zane watched him go for a few seconds, then turned his attention back to his clues.

Three minutes later, Ty returned. As he dropped gracelessly into his seat, he leaned over and whispered, "Sixteen."

"Sixteen what?" Zane asked.

"There are sixteen bald dudes on the plane. Seventeen if you include the guy wearing the terrible wig."

"You actually counted them?"

"Yup."

"Okay. Then go count something else now. If you pick something really good, we should be ready to land by the time you're done."

"Like what?"

Zane gazed longingly at his still empty squares. "How about the number of times I'm gonna kick your sorry ass once we get off this goddamn plane?" he groused.

"In your dreams, Texas."

"Meow Mix, when I dream about your ass, I'm usually not kicking it."

Ty glared, obviously not completely appeased. "How about I do my kegel exercises?" he then suggested.

"What the fuck are those?"

"Exercises to strengthen my pelvic floor."

"Is there something wrong with your pelvic floor?" Zane asked.

"Not that I know of."

"So why the fuck are you doing them?"

"They're supposed to be good for your bladder," Ty explained, shrugging slightly. "And some guy at the Mayo Clinic thinks they give you better wood."

Zane's eyebrows shot up. _Interesting_ , as Deacon was so fond of saying. "Do you make any noise or movement while you do them?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Well, then. Exercise away."

This time, the peace and quiet was two minutes long.

"Ty?" Zane asked.

"What?"

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"My Kegel exercises, Zane."

"I thought you said they don't make any movement or noise."

"They don't."

"Then why the fuck can I feel you doing them?"

Now it was Ty's turn to look surprised. "You can feel me squeezing my pelvic floor?" he asked.

"Is it the same thing you do when you're trying to hold in a fart?"

"Pretty much."

"Then yes, I can feel you squeezing your pelvic floor."

"So you can feel this?" Ty asked.

A tiny tremor rippled across the seats.

"Yes," Zane said.

"You obviously have very sensitive buttocks."

"Obviously."

"I would test the theory later, but I just put you on a sex ban, so you're shit out of luck."

"How will I _ever_ survive?" Zane asked sarcastically.

The world around him fell silent once more. Or at least, as silent as it could when you were sitting at the back of a plane.

Then his other half started to hum. Slightly off-key and _very_ loudly. And not just any ridiculous tune—nothing less than "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" would do.

Zane suppressed the urge to scream. "Tyler?"

"Hmm?"

"Would you _please_ just shut the fuck up?"

Ty gave him an insouciant grin. "I'll shut the fuck up if you give me your phone."

So that was the psychological name of the game.

"Fine," Zane said through gritted teeth. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and threw it into his husband's lap. "Take the fucking thing. But if you even _think_ about doing something naughty with it, I swear to God, I'll kill you, strip you naked and bury you under the home plate at Fenway Park with your ass sticking out of the ground."

"Gonna tell Irish you said that," Ty muttered.

"Go right ahead. He knows _exactly_ how much of an asshole you are, so pretty sure he'd offer to hold the shovel for me."

"Sometimes I think I preferred it when the two of you didn't like each other."

"Meow Mix, sometimes I think I preferred it when the two of _us_ didn't like each other," Zane revealed. "You slept through our first plane ride together, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ty mumbled back, but his focus had now switched to the phone.

Jangling music erupted from the device; his husband had found and loaded Doom.

"Just turn the sound off," Zane ordered. "You can shoot whoever and whatever you want, but do it quietly."

"Jesus, Lone Star, that is so _not_ a good thing to say on a plane."

Ty switched the music off; peace and quiet reigned again.

But only for another few minutes.

"Uh, Zane?"

"Yeah?"

"Is Doom supposed to do this?"

Zane's head whipped up.

Ty was holding out the phone—the screen had gone completely black.

"Jesus, Ty," Zane groaned. "What the hell did you just do?" He plucked the device out of his husband's hands.

"It's not my fault, Zane," Ty protested. "I was picking up a pack of shotgun shells and poof! Doomworld went completely black."

Zane pressed and held the power button, forcing the handset into a hard reboot. Three seconds passed, then five, then seven, but still no sign the phone was coming back to life. Crap. Ty might not be the only one making an emergency trip to the store.

At the ten second mark, the boot-up sequence finally appeared. Zane breathed a sigh of relief. Thank fuck. The phone wasn't dead; it had simply crashed. Then he looked at the screen and frowned. Where the hell was his background photo—the one of him and Ty on the Beach of the Cathedral in Spain? Scratch that, where the fuck were all of his files and apps?

Oh, God. The phone had crashed all right, and reset to factory defaults, taking all of his contacts, emails and photos with it.

He made a strangled noise at the back of his throat.

"Everything okay there, babe?" Ty asked very quietly.

"No, Ty, everything is _not_ okay," Zane shot back. "My phone just reverted to factory settings, so all of my personal content's gone."

Ty squirmed slightly in his seat. "But you back it all up to the cloud, right? You _can_ restore it?"

"Not without a network signal or a Wi-Fi connection."

"You should get a network signal once we're on the ground," the ex-Marine helpfully pointed out. "And Nick has Wi-Fi on the boat."

"We won't even _get_ to the boat if I can't reload my contacts."

"Why the hell not?"

"Nick's coming to pick us up, right?"

"Yeah?"

"And he's gonna wait in the cell phone parking lot until we text him to let him know we've arrived?"

"Yeah?"

"And how do I text him if I don't have my contacts loaded? Unless you know Nick's new cell number by heart?"

"Crap, I never thought of that."

"I suppose we could always call him from your phone instead," Zane said with a maliciously innocent smile.

Ty huffed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, babe. I know I fucked up a bit. But you still love me, right?" he asked, turning on his puppy dog eyes. "Even though I lost my phone and kinda broke yours?"

"I suppose," Zane said, feeling his anger melting away. It was hard to be annoyed with Ty when he gave you his Pathetic Stare.

"The hell do you mean, you _suppose_?"

"I'd say 'yes' if I thought you'd make this up to me later, but you just put me on a sex ban, so I know that's not gonna happen."

"How about I put the sex ban on hold?"

"And you'll make it up to me later?"

"Yeah, but we'll have to be real quiet about it," Ty warned. "You know how antsy Nick gets when we do the dirty on the boat."

"I can be quiet."

Ty let out a dubious snort. "Sure you can."

Zane laid his phone at the edge of his tray and tapped on the crossword with his pen. "I only have a few clues left to solve, so why don't you go count the number of seams in the ceiling and let me wrap this up before we land?"

Right on cue, the seatbelt sign quietly pinged.

Ty gestured at the Boston skyline, which was visible now just off to the right. "Think we should buy me a new phone while we're here?" he asked, completely ignoring his husband's request.

"Unless you can't live without it, let's wait 'til we get home," Zane said. "Sales tax is slightly lower in Baltimore, plus there's still a chance you might get your old one back."

"Some TSA asshole's probably got it by now."

"But you had a lock on the phone, right?" Zane asked. "So nobody can access your personal files?"

Ty nodded. "Probably a good thing, seeing as how it's got a whole bunch of dick pics on it."

"Jesus, Grady," Zane muttered. "Why the hell are you taking photos of your dick?"

Ty flashed his brows and gave him an _utterly_ indecent grin. "What makes you think the dick in all the photos is mine?"


End file.
